As usual with Obama, he says one thing and does another. Never pay attention to what he says, judge him by what he does. He was going to "tax the one percent." But look at what is actually happening. Payroll taxes went up (a tax on the not-rich) and his health care initiative (damned by his own party now) will increase taxes on those who can least afford it.

So when he talks about crossing a "line", whether it is red or in the sand no one should be surprised by the lack of action from the White House, nor the hypocrisy of the comments.

Dont you believe it - They have been fuelling this from Day one through third parties Turkey, the Gulf tyrannies, shipments from Croatia. all they are aguing now is to be able to bomb the crap out of the place - as open allies of AlQuaeda types. Who'd have believed it?

Dont you believe it - They have been fuelling this from Day one through third parties Turkey, the Gulf tyrannies, shipments from Croatia. all they are aguing now is to be able to bomb the crap out of the place - as open allies of AlQuaeda types. Who'd have believed it?

I do not know and do not care what "Jewish" influence in the US is. I know that there are open alliances between the US and Israel which must be honoured for the sake of American prestige and credibility.
My country Italy has also signed two bilateral military treaties with Israel over the last 15 years - and, like the US, we have been allied to Turkey since 1952.

There is no oil in Syria - just one of the world's greatest cradles of culture and oldest cities, including six UNESCO world heritage sites:

Ancient City of Damascus
Ancient City of Bosra
Site of Palmyra
Ancient City of Aleppo
Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din
Ancient Villages of Northern Syria

And there is the myriad linguistic, religious and ethnic mosaic of the Syrians themselves to preserve and protect.

Putting an end to the Assad Regime ends decades of state support for terrorism in many parts of the globe. I agree Assad has been a secularist, but let's not erect that regime into any defender of western or democratic values. This is basically an Arab Communist regime left over from the Cold War - and long aided by Moscow. "Communist" Poland, East Germany or Czechoslovakia were nothing compared to Syria.

Assad had no ties with Al Qaeda like Saddam.
Assad support Hezbolla, but they are not those terrorists working outside the middle east.
Italy must support Israel due to her crime during the WW2 as fascists country collaborating with Nazis sending out the Jews to the death camps.

And no time did Italian Fascists collaborate in the deportation of Jews while Mussolini was in power - and they went distinctly out of their way to protect all Jews of any citizenship from physical harm.
It was not vastly popular to admit Italian Fascists had done anything correct or heroic in the postwar period - so this story is not as widely known as might have been (or as widely known as it is among the Israelis themselves).
At the height of the Axis Alliance, Italian generals ordered their troops to block the tracks and prevent trains from transporting Jews (France) our diplomatic personnel issued false passports to hundreds and ultimately thousands of Jews (Hungary and Greece) our Navy transported Jews to Dalmatian Islands for their protection against the Ustasha and Nazis (Croatia).
These incidents were later raised at the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem as proof that it was possible for Fascists or Nazis to disobey any orders that would have constituted war crimes.http://vimeo.com/2322714

In fact it is quite the opposite. The US is happy for Israel to intervene, as it has done, and for the US to stay out. Wise decision if I may say so. Israel is more than capable of destroying Syria's capabilities to do mischief with its WMDs.

"And no time did Italian Fascists collaborate in the deportation of Jews while Mussolini was in power - and they went distinctly out of their way to protect all Jews of any citizenship from physical harm."

I am not necessarily asserting that the US shouldnt intervene, but here is my question: Why is the Economist only arguing that the US has to be the only nation to take action against Assad? What about NATO? Damn, I know Assad is allied with Putin, but certainly the Russians are concerned about a jihadist outcome in Syria as a result of Assad's downfall. To me, its time for once that the world agrees to take action or inaction, one way or the other, but the time has long passed for America to act alone.

I think that there is no need for a babysitter in the Middle East. They are grown ups - let them sort of their differences themselves. The British have done enough damage to this region - by issuing the infamous Balfour declaration which caused the creation of Israel.

You say:
'The British have done enough damage to this region - by issuing the infamous Balfour declaration which caused the creation of Israel.'

What do you know. If not for the Balfour declaration, there wouldn't be the:

1860 Lebanese civil war;
1960's Egyptian war in Yemen, including gas attacks;
1982 Hama massacre of tens of thousands of Syrians, by the Syrian army;
A million Muslims wouldn't have been killed in the Iran-Iraq was of the 1980's;
Saddam wouldn't use gas to kill his own Kurdish citizens;
Darfur genocide wouldn't happen;
etc...etc...etc...

If not for the Balfour declaration, none of those, and many more, wouldn't occur, right?!

Actually the whole problem began much earlier. This old guy was happily married. However, lust compelled him to start sleeping with his wife's maid. He got both his wife and her maid pregnant. That caused a huge problem in his family. If only he had stayed in the pub drinking with his buddies, rather than sexually assaulting the maid. That is why, here in China, there is a famous saying: Wife who hires a pretty maid can keep the husband home at night. Confucius also said: If you pray with your head to the East, you show your arse to the West.

Actually, I am quiet surprised that until now the UN General Assembly failed to adopt a resolution condemning that old guy..

Anyway, your pretty clear attempt to divert attention from your false statement about the Balfour Declaration being the source of the Middle East problems, reminds me of an old Chinese phrase that states:

Actually the UN did act - through the ILO. Under an ILO convention, it is now illegal to try and have sex with a domestic servant. Under national laws this is also covered under "sexual harassment laws".
Chinese saying: Flies never visit an egg that has no crack.

On poor old Lord Balfour. Herzl and the earlier Zionists were just master manipulators - the guys who actually performed the ethnic cleansing came later.

First he tried to convince the Turks. In 1896, Theodor Herzl set forth his plan for inducing the Ottoman Empire to grant Palestine to the Zionist movement:

"Supposing his Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine; we could, in return, undertake to regulate the finances of Turkey. We should there form an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism."

Then we started working on the Germans and the British. As the Kaiser undertook to forge an alliance with Turkey as part of his contest with Britain and France for control of the Middle East, the Zionist movement made similar overtures to Imperial Germany. The Kaiser took nearly ten years in his on-and-off dealings with the Zionist leadership to formulate a plan for a Jewish state under ottoman auspices which would have as its principal task the eradication of the Palestinian anti-colonial resistance and the securing of the interests of Imperial Germany in the region.

By 1914, however, the World Zionist Organization was already far advanced in its parallel bid to enlist the British Empire to undertake the break-up of the Ottoman Empire with Zionist assistance. Chaim Weizmann, who was to become president of the World Zionist Organization, made an important public announcement:

"We can reasonably say that should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage Jewish settlement there, as a British dependency, we could have in twenty to thirty years a million Jews out there, perhaps more; they would develop the country, bring back civilization to it and form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal."

Finally, the Zionists formed an alliance with the apartheid-loving racists South Africans. Herzl advocated achieving Zionist dispersal of the Palestinians by using the methods pioneered by Rhodes, and he urged the formation of a Jewish counterpart to a colonial chartered company, an amalgam of colonial and entrepreneurial exploitation:

"The Jewish Company is partly modelled on the lines of a great acquisition company. It might be called a Jewish Chartered Company, though it cannot exercise sovereign power, and has no other than purely colonial tasks."

"The poorest will go first to cultivate the soil. In accordance with a preconceived plan they will construct roads, bridges, railways and telegraph installations, regulate rivers and build their own habitations; their labor will create trade, trade will create markets, and markets will attract new settlers."

By 1934, a major group of South African investors and large capitalists had established Africa-Israel Investments to purchase land in Palestine. The company still exists after decades with South Africans as joint stockholders, the assets held by Israel’s Bank Leumi.

South Africa and Rhodesia became the role models for the Zionists. "The objective of Zionism has never been merely to colonize Palestine – as was the goal of classical colonial and imperial movements during the 19th and 20th centuries. The design of European colonialism in Africa and Asia was, essentially, to exploit indigenous peoples as cheap labor while extracting natural resources for exorbitant profit.

What distinguishes Zionism from other colonial movements is the relationship between the settlers and the people to be conquered. The avowed purpose of the Zionist movement was not merely to exploit the Palestinian people but to disperse and dispossess them. The intent was to replace the indigenous population with a new settler community, to eradicate the farmers, artisans and town-dwellers of Palestine and substitute an entirely new workforce composed of the settler population.

In denying the existence of the Palestinian people, Zionism sought to create the political climate for their removal, not only from their land but from history. When acknowledged at all, the Palestinians were re-invented as a semi-savage, nomadic remnant. Historical records were falsified – a procedure begun during the last quarter of the 19th century but continuing to this day.

The reality is that Palestine was a peaceful and very secular place. "There were over one thousand villages in Palestine at the turn of the 19th century. Jerusalem, Haifa, Gaza, Jaffa, Nablus, Acre, Jericho, Ramle, Hebron and Nazareth were flourishing towns. The hills were painstakingly terraced. Irrigation ditches crisscrossed the land. The citrus orchards, olive groves and grains of Palestine were known throughout the world. Trade, crafts, textiles, cottage industry and agricultural production abounded.

"Eighteenth and 19th century travelers’ accounts are replete with the data".

The Jews wanted to flee from Europe. Fine. They wanted to settle in Asia. Fine. But, instead of behaving like guests, they starting behaving like colonial conquerors. That is not acceptable at all. It is uncivilized.

Curious is the way the UK is increasing the drum beats for intervention in Syria.
Economist has been advocating intervention from quite some time assuming it is white man' burden..
Couple of months ago Tony Blair on Hardtalk on BBC said that it was their duty to intervene in Syria.
Now Cameron claims war crimes have been committed by Assad's forces and is raising the ante.
US under Obama is not enthusiastic as they are the ones who have to do the fighting. Britain withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan early after entering the conflicts with US.
The motivation may be individual. The ruling classes in UK will probably benefit from all wars as they are intimately connected with the city.
Also probable is their expectation that it will help their economy which is not doing well.
US is much better off investing the billions it invests in war in subsidizing industry and service industry to bring back manufacture and computer services back to US to create employment.
Spend dollar for dollar to subsidise the US economy to fight Chinese commercially instead of wasting time, money and lives in unwinnable wars.

" America needs to take action against Bashar Assad", cries TE. Well, we will admonish him mercilessly. TE writers, and their editors, are free to do more if that is their conviction. What, exactly, prevents them from doing so?...

"Diplomats are warning of growing Islamist violence against western targets in Libya as blowback from the war in Mali, following last week's attack on the French embassy in Tripoli.

The bomb blast that wrecked much of the embassy is seen as a reprisal by Libyan militants for the decision by Paris the day before to extend its military mission against fellow jihadists in Mali.

Eastern Libya has long been a base for Islamists, who launched an unsuccessful uprising against Gaddafi in the 1990s. Their units reappeared in the uprising two years ago, and while many have integrated with government forces, others are campaigning for a state ruled by clerics rather than secular politicians. Benghazi has become a virtual no-go area for foreigners following attacks on the British, Italian and Tunisian consulates, the fire-bombing of an Egyptian Coptic church and the killing of US ambassador Chris Stevens in September when militants overran the American consulate. The bombing in Tripoli indicates that terrorism has now spread to the capital."

And it would not be the first time that a frenzy of rumors is created in order to justify yet another unecessary war. Here is Richie Havens on this subject:

"Ive been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that youve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And theres a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the t.v.
You hear one thing again and again
How the USA stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names

They sell us the president the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But theyre never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire."

I think that there is no need for anybody to take any action. It is a regional issue - let them sort of their differences themselves. The British have done enough damage to this region - by issuing the infamous Balfour declaration which caused the creation of Israel.

Those guys are now called the poor Palestinians - The folks who had a problem with the Europeans were a totally different ethnic group - "they were a coalition of shamanistic Turkic clans, the Khazars mixed with their Slav, Magyar and Bulgar subjects".

Hence, the linguistic differences. Hebrew is a Phoenician (which is now Lebanon) language. Yiddish is "a mix of Germanic, Slavic and Turkic dialects". In linguistic science, these are totally different language groups. By the end of the 19th Century, 80% of the world’s Jews were Yiddish speakers.

"According to contemporary scholars, the original Hebrew script developed alongside others in the region during the course of the late second and first millennia BCE; it is closely related to the Phoenician script, which itself probably gave rise to the use of alphabetic writing in Greece (Greek)" - secular source.

"The characters of the Hebrew Alphabet are derived from the so-called Phenician or Old Semitic letters, to which almost all systems of letters now in use, even the Roman, can be traced" - Jewish Encyclopedia.

There are several more sources - but you may not be interested in academic sources - they will be declared as "nonsense" by you.

Sigh. Script does not equal language. You might be surprised that script in the form of what is understood to be "alphabet" can, and was, traced back to one particular stone in Egypt. Your hatred towards anything Jewish blinds you. All semitic languages trace their script to that one source.
In Mongolia they use the Cyrillic script, and according your logic (or what passes for it) Mongolian language is derived from Russian.
Spare me, please, your pseudo-intellectual musings. Your last post convinced me beyond any doubt, whatsoever, that, yes, you merely spew nonsense. Over and out for good.

The technical term for someone who has been displaced from his or her home, but has not crossed an international border, is Internally Displaced Person (IDP), not refugee. To say "refugees inside and outside of Syria" referring to people whose home is in Syria, is wrong.

How bout we send the staff of the The Economist to go and fight for human rights in Syria, together with all those lovely, friendly-looking, freedom-loving "rebels" we keep seeing on television?
Oh, and I forgot to ask: how well did recommending war work out for you last time around? But this newspaper doesn't seem to be a quick learner.

The past decade has seen the decline of American determination both economically and politically. To say that Obama “doesn't want to act” in Syria is a kind way of saying that America no longer has the stamina to police the world and impose its agenda as it did at the peak of its hegemony.http://komm.yt/pol/j/america-is-tired

Chemicals?
Be careful, Mossad is behind the scene.
Israel wants USA to get involved in Syria and then Iran.
This was the perfect repetition of Israel and Peres who pushed so many times with false information on Iraq. Bush was trapped by Mossad.

First - Indeed, Iran do not care so much for the Sunni Palestinians. Like many of their Arab brethren, many in the Arab world do not really care if the Palestinians live or die. For many of them, the Palestinians serve as a tool to divert attention to Israel rather than cope with internal issues of those Arab states.

As we in the past couple of 'Arab Spring' years - the Arab masses do not buy anymore into the 'Israel is the problem' fallacy. No one have time any more to the invented 'Palestinian problem'.

Second - It all depends on the size of the bomb. You can drop one on Tel-Aviv and kill 10,000, or one that kills 100,000, but then radiation will reach far and wide.

Iran will then focus on using many small sized bombs that target large Jewish population centers.

Absolutely - even after the Iraq invasion - here is a news analysis about their false flag operations:

"Back in 2006 a story made its rounds through the internet and the worlds media that Israel snipers were killing U.S. Troops in Iraq and pinning the blame on “insurgents” in order to enrage American troops so that the slaughter continued. After a thorough investigation into this older story there is more than enough evidence to point to the fact that Mossad is operating inside Iraq and has been for years. On October 18, 2006 Anderson Cooper of CNN showed a video of snipers killing U.S. troops in Iraq. CNN says it obtained the video from a “representative” of an unnamed “insurgent leader.” Bear in mind that Anderson Cooper used to work for the CIA. Interesting side note, If you go to Anderson Coopers “blog” and look at Anderson Cooper’s Archives you will see that there is a huge missing gap of video from December 2005 – January 2008. That is two years of missing video reports. Interesting that it happens to be the same time this report aired and the same time that the sectarian violence in Iraq was raging and attacks by “insurgents” on our troops increased in number and brutality.

Richard Wilson’s hypothesis: Israeli soldiers and/or Mossad agents are killing our soldiers in Iraq in order to enrage American troops so that the slaughter continues.

At the very beginning of the original (now missing) video clip, you see a rifle with a video camera attached to it. This weapon is made by the Rafael company, an Israeli arms manufacturer, that also makes IEDs. As you watch the video, you see that with each shot fired, the camera recoils. Why is this significant? Because this kind of rifle-camera is extremely sophisticated and not available to your average Iraqi insurgent. Something this sophisticated points to Mossad.

For example, on July 23, 2005, a detachment of 19 female US Marines was sent to Fallujah to check Iraqi women for bombs. An IED blew up their truck. Two of the young American women were killed, five were critically wounded, and four were captured. The bodies of the four captured women turned up later in a garbage dump with their throats cut. Americans were outraged. Islamic clerics insisted that only Israelis could be so cold-blooded. And who was in charge of US forces in Fallujah at the time? None other than Major General Natonski, the Mossad liaison.

Americans are supposed to believe that rag-tag “insurgents” use IEDs powerful enough to kill three US troops per day, on average and flip over up-armored vehicles. An American soldier even set up a blog on how “Intel” is betraying and targeting US troops. The blog has long since been taken down, one can only assume by the Pentagon.

According to Richard Wilson, Israeli sniping and IEDs are false flag operations. He says that on March 28, 2005, Americans arrested Mossad agents who fired twice on a US Marine checkpoint. And indeed in 2005 U.S. Marines arrested 16 members of the Zapata Engineering Security Convoy for firing on Marine guard towers. The Marines beat up the Mossad agents and tore off their Star-of-David necklaces. The Mossad agents said they were employees of Zapata Engineering, which is a CIA/Mossad front company that conducts interrogations, and also manages US ammo dumps and US motor pools in Iraq.

IEDs in Iraq are powerful enough to flip over a 70-ton tank. Some of the models shoot depleted-uranium projectiles, and are triggered by electronic devices surreptitiously planted on US armored vehicles. Zapata Engineering (which employs Mossad agents) makes this exact kind of trigger, and oversees some of the US motor pools.

Rumsfeld said the IEDs come from Iran, but Richard said they come from The Mossad, and are not “improvised” at all. The Israeli company, Rafael, makes IEDS, which are buried in the middle of a road. On the side of the road is a device which emits a laser or radio signal. This device is manufactured by firms like Zapata Engineering, which is controlled by Mossad. The IED mine, manufactured by Israel, is inert until a US vehicle (secretly planted with a triggering device) rolls over it."

Expect more Mossad false flag operations in the coming weeks. And do not be surprised if suddenly (perhaps by next week) there are "confessions" from "rebel soldiers" that "chemical weapons" are being provided by Iran!!!!!

And then there will be headlines about red lines being crossed, etc.................

Not yet hacked, but thanks for your advice.
Hope TE has good security, though there may be spies inside TE who want US get involved in Syria.
TE should urge UK to get involved first and even alone, no?

Iran doesn't care about the Palestinians beyond using them as a political tool to further its own ends. The same applies to virtually every country in the Middle East with the exception of possibly Jordan.

Several nations in the region, like Kuwait, have forcibly seized the property of all Palestinians, taken away their civil rights, and mass deported them to active warzones. Others shoot them when they try to cross borders illegally. Egypt enforces the Gaza blockade just as harshly as Israel. Jordan, which largely accepts Palestinians, still treats them as second class citizens.

However, Jordan (along with Israel) is one of the only two countries to ever grant any Palestinians full citizenship rights, which it did some years back for a select group.

The point is, even if Israel packed up and all the Jews moved to the US and Europe tomorrow, the Palestinians would starve and nobody in the region would care. Indeed, they would actually care less since there would no longer be the geopolitical aspect regarding Israel to pay attention to. Not to mention, most food aid in the territories comes from the Israeli state and USAID.

The US already disproportionately bears the burden of the UN, despite the fact that it almost never gets its way in terms of resolutions and more often than not has to band together with the world's liberal democracies to vote down stupid proposals.

WE have to deal with Syria? Excuse me? To use the vernacular: like hell we do! Where, oh where, are England, France, Germany, Turkey, Spain, and Italy? It's time that Europe stepped up and cleaned up messes in their own hemisphere instead of dragging in the U.S., again. Enough!

The claims that Assad's army used chemical agents in his fight against rebel forces must be verified.

If indeed confirmed, and in a couple of incidents nerves gas was used, to my humble opinion the US and Obama would have no choice but to react. Otherwise, their credibility will be tarnished, and much worse violence will follow in Syria and elsewhere. It will then be only a matter of time until those gas agents will find their way into the US itself.

The preferred response would then be a measured one. Since limited usage of chemical weapons is the issue, the US response should be designed as a signal to Assad, which includes the following aspects:

1. By responding to the gas attack launched by Syria, the US tells Assad they know he did it, and warn him that this is a no-no.

2. By responding by force, Obama signals to Assad that he is a man of his word, and that such attacks can't be repeated.

3. Obama also signals that the Russian support to Syria bears no meaning for the US when lines drawn by the US President are crossed.

4. By a limited response, Obama contain few additional messages:
a) He tells Assad that the US didn't decide to overthrow him, didn't look for an excuse to cause massive damage to his people or facilities, nor did the US join the rebels,
b) That Assad can forget about scenes of US soldiers getting stuck in the Syrian mud so soon after getting out of the Iraqi one due to limited usage of chemical weapons, and
c) The number of US casualties will be minimal,m avoiding pressure at home.

Such limited response actions can be the bombing of highways and airports around the chemical weapons depots or plants, to prevent further spread of those chemical agents into the battle filed; bombing of chemical centers command posts; etc.

If the US looses its credibility, the spread of WMDs and their actual usage will proliferate in exponential manner.

Would have to really nail down the evidence. My guess is, the Syrian offer to allow a UN team in with a Russian component should be taken.
`
Now maybe the Russians will muddy the water, but if there is irrefutable evidence, it may make it possible for others, like Europeans, Americans, other Arab countries, to press for "pressure".
`
Make clear that further attacks would result in cruise missile attacks on all air force installations and suspected chemical weapons depots and/or laboratories/manufacturing facilities (if possible).
`
At a minimum, if Assad loses effective use of his air force, namely the ability to generate a decent number of sorties, then his forces will likely be significantly set back on the ground.

I think that there is no need for anybody to take any action. It is a regional issue - let them sort of their differences themselves. The British have done enough damage to this region - by issuing the infamous Balfour declaration which caused the creation of Israel. Germany cannot intervene anyway - it is a "weapons free country" after WW2. France is going through an economic recession. Etc., etc.

This issue should be sent to the UN - you will recall that the UN was created after WW2 precisely to deal with issues like this. We should strengthen the UN.

Sure - cruise missiles and drones must be used. And then what - Assad will lose power. And then the religious zealots and Islamic fundamentalists will come into power. By that time, there will be a Republication president in the USA.

And then, there will be there will be the typical American populist battle cry: "If you guys do not behave yourselves, then we will be forced to kill most of you in order to impose democracy upon you"!!!!!

And then, yet another military adventure will start, much to the orgasmic delight of the long-suffering shareholders of Halliburton and suchlike middle class and God-fearing folks.

And then, there will be countless body bags and the deficit will start to get out of hand. Blood lithium levels will begin to decline, clinical depression will take over the nation. "Bring the boys home" will be the motto. Another war will be lost - however, the word "withdrawal" will not be used this time - it has been used much too often since Vietnam onwards. In any case, the religious right (in power) does not like this term - it sounds too much like coitus interruptus. The term "extraction" will be used instead!!!!

Time to read Bertrand Russell (and Gabriel Kolko) on the schizophrenic super-power and the need for a capitalist economy to engage in semi-perpetual conflict. Winning or losing is inconsequential.

The US and the West are willing to fund the Jihadist insurgents like the Al Qaeda brigade of Syria and the Levantt and weaponize them through its Wahhabi allies in the Gulf. But when dealing with Wahabbi inspired terrorism at home, the US seems to be taking no chances - a Saudi student wounded in the Boston blast was promptly deported for fear of his involvement in the plot even without offering any proof. Like-wise, the Western media like TE need no proof in their accusations of the Syrian regime.

The UN has gone bankrupt long ago. It fails the very mission it was established for.

Worse - Instead of promoting peace, through its uselessness THE UN ENCOURAGES further usage of WMDs elsewhere around the world, and PROMOTES Crimes Against Humanity and war Crimes.

I call upon all decent nations that still hold to the basic human values of peace, human rights, and justice, to LEAVE THE UN, and stop being collaborators with the usage of WMDs and execution of Crimes Against Humanity & War Crimes!

Well, this is what the UM members are signed on - The Charter of the United Nations. From the Preamble:

"WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED...

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small..."

From Article 1:
"The Purposes of the United Nations are:
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to TAKE EFFECTIVE COLLECTIVE MEASURES for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the SUPPRESSION OF ACTS OF AGGRESSION or other breaches of the peace..."

No, Sir. The UN isn't a 'parliament of parliaments'. It is a body with specific goals. If you do not like you British coalition government, next elections you can elect a different one. In the UN, you can't "elect" different nations to this body if fails its mission.

The UN was established for a purpose. The UN routinely fails its purpose. Any nation that remains a member of this rotten body and keeps financing it, remains an accomplice to its wrongs.

Worse, the UN increasingly serves as a promoter of war and instability, rather than a body that is suppose to put an end to war.

In its inability to act, it becomes a de facto legitimating body for Crimes and grand scale criminals.

"From Article 1:
"The Purposes of the United Nations are:
To maintain international peace and security..."
Well, it's 'international peace' not 'intranational peace'. For the later, there is this 'non-interference of other's internal affairs' principle. I know, I know, the nosy ones don't like this, and their problem is far beyond reading comprehension. But maybe we can refrain from interfere using military means?

When it comes to Crimes Against Humanity, can we really stay on the sidelines, and just those continue?

As you suggest, we might as well avoid interference, yes. But that is precisely the point I made about the UN: If no-one intends to interfere, abolish the UN! - Why spend so much money for nothing?

If the UN, contrary to the Charter, is NOT 'determined to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights...' - why have it exist in the first place!

The US government now must cut on its expenses. I am sure the sum it spends on the UN can yield much better results if it is spent within the US budget. The US covers almost A QUARTER of the entire UN budget!

It's April 2013. The next federal elections take place in 2014. If you believe current political science efforts, then the Republicans are in no way a lock to take over the Senate...but they aren't that far away. If Barack Obama invests American troops in a way results in a negative outcome (deaths - US or otherwise) without conclusive results, i.e. PROOF that all Syrian chemical weapons are secure and in friendly hands, it would almost assure the Republicans of retaking the Senate. Not a good for a Democrat president's second term and definitely not good for his legacy. In summary, there will be more words, more posturing, and more demonstrable evidence to our enemies and partners alike that this President is a mouthpiece.

History will repeat. You can almost be certain that the next Republican guy like his predecessor GWB will try to dislodge the Wahhabi inspired terrorists sleeping on his bed now after some attacks at home.

I said this with;
"This middle east conflict will not keep continuing. As history has proven time after time, one side has to lose eventually. That side must be the one that is less-resilient! Note that America's economic power will not last long. If you analyze America's tech and auto companies, it shouldn't take you too long to understand why. Basically, they are like empty-shells."

With Zionists to the left and right, you must be having a wishful thinking. The main intractable problem facing those Zionists now is how to "Cut off the Head of the Snake" even if it means sleeping now with the Al Qaeda linked terrorists abroad.

You understand what White Phosphorus is right? It's used to illuminate the battlefield so you can see where the enemy is. Its as much of a chemical weapon as the gasoline in Israeli vehicles is. Stop crying wolf.

Calm down, Sikko. Normally, in fascism, when you tell the truth you are being hunted for saying the truth.

But wait a second.. I stated the truth here... and then was attacked. What a fascist behavior!!

I do not know for a fact if Israel has the nukes or not, but it is besides the point, isn't it?

The point is, that those Middle Eastern Ba'ath regimes which hold chemical weapons, like Iraq in the 1980's which killed its own Kurdish population, or like Syria today which seems to do the same, to its Sunni population, USE IT!

Chemical weapons are chemical weapons. But not everything made from chemicals is a weapon. If Israel wants to light up the night sky so they don't shoot indiscriminately at shadows moving in the dark I would think you'd appreciate their discretion. I wouldn't care at all if Syria illuminated the battlefield. Why should I?